The Legend of Count Dracula

The dark lure of a towering Man, clad in black with a flowing cloak caressing the earth as he strides – tall and scrupulously groomed; magnetic deep eyes that seems to beckon from a world far removed from the present, a voice that is at once seductive and charming; a physical attraction that draws young nubile and lissome women irresistibly into his arms, yearning for that solitary long warm, wet and lascivious kiss that could appease their seething passion; their placid white swan necks yielding itself like a flower to the Sun with its throbbing veins pressing itself against their glistening skin - and then the Count lowers his face with a rapacious look in his eyes numbing the beholder with its hypnotic intensity, his red lips opening up ever so slightly revealing short, sharp fangs, ready to bite just enough into their succulent veins throbbing with blood; evoking a light lusty, throaty hiss from his victim, slurping up all vitality in the form of cabalist red liquid; those ghostly pale whites turning crimson red in their sockets, and trickles of blood slithering down the parched lips of Count Dracula as he lays his limpid prey into a coffin, easing them to a nether world of uninhibited lust and an everlasting twilight zone of deathless life.

The legend, the charm, the horror of Count Dracula has been with us for more than a century. Bram stoker, the writer who conceived the myth of the Count was never an author of great repute. As a child, he was affected by a mysterious illness that left him brooding and introspective until the age of seven. Though he showed no traces of ill-health in later life, Stoker notes in his journals “…I was naturally thoughtful, and the leisure of long illness gave opportunity for many thoughts which were fruitful according to their kind in later years…” What those thoughts were, and what deep wells of Human fantasy that this young boy touched during those formative years, is something we will never know; but it is clear that he was fascinated by a gothic sense of supernatural that characterized almost his works. In all, Stoker wrote twelve works of fiction and three collections of short stories; and spent more of his working life managing the famed Lyceum Theatre in London, host to some of the finest Shakespearean drama, opulent operas during Stoker’s time, to Musical concerts and beauty pageants even today. It was a chance visit to a quaint English town of Whitby in 1890 that triggered his imagination on medieval European folklore. A casual conversation with a Hungarian writer propelled him to research the strange history of Hungary and Carpathian ranges whose history is soaked in human blood during the period of crusades, pushing Man against Man into a mad vortex of unimaginable hatred and blood lust, committing crimes that would repulse the most psychotic of killers in the modern era, creating myths and legends that were more real than life itself - Stoker avidly absorbed the putrid and sinister current of those disturbing times, when the only act that kept Europe alive was war, pillage, inquisition, ritual slaughter and a certain darkness of the Human soul. Renaissance was but a distant dream then. Not without reason, those were called the dark ages of Western civilization.

“Dracula” is one of those orders in the middle ages formed to fight the infidels. Their sole intention was to serve Christ, and through him the Pope, by massacring Ottoman Turks, who had almost reached gates of Rome in their quest for world dominion. The more they killed, the better were their chances of a Holy recompense and a place in heaven. Vlad III (Count Dracula), the particularly aggressive king of Wallachia- a little province nestled in the Transylvanian ranges, was known for his abnormal commitment to the cause of crusades. He was popularly called as “Vlad - the impaler”, an appellation that stuck to his name because of his merciless decapacitation of his enemies and impaling them on the battlefield. He is pictured in History as a staunch Man of God, a warrior whose zeal for Christianity was messianic. But, when and how this great crusader lost his faith, and revolted against the very God he believed in - is a mystery that is shrouded in darkness of the age itself. There are legends and myths that whisper that the Count’s wife killed herself on a false alarm that her Husband died on the battlefield; and when the Count came back victorious, found his beloved bleeding herself to death in his arms; let out a heart wrenching cry and swore to himself that he would relinquish his faith in a Godhead that could not preserve his beautiful wife; giving himself into the hands of Darkness for all time to come. Modern historians dispute this claim, but the stronghold of belief, myth and terror still continue to hold sway in public mind. In those gloomy mountain ranges, it is still believed, that the Count rises from his dead slumber each night to drink the blood of innocent girls. No amount of facts can wipe away deep rooted beliefs.

Bram stoker spent six years researching European lore, myths and superstitions before he embarked upon writing his novel. He knew that in the blood thirsty, lusty conception of a princely count who preys on young nubile women – there was an archetype that will find deep resonance in reading public. His previous books weren’t a great commercial success, but Stoker knew, that with “Dracula”, he had hit upon a universal theme of Good and evil, heaven and purgatory, death and salvation. Written in the form of epistles, flashbacks and journals in terse prose that left a lot unsaid, the two hundred odd page book contained within it an attraction the pulled a reader to the edge of sanity. Even a century after, Stoker’s Dracula can still give us the creeps.

In my opinion, the wide popularity of Dracula is largely due to its adoption by Movies in the last century. Stoker was probably a trifle lucky to find his dark, evil protagonist becoming a sensational subject for the visual media. IMDB lists, at a bare minimum, two hundred and thirteen adaptions, reprisals, and different favors and remakes of Stoker’s core characters - Count Dracula, the intrepid real estate agent Jonathan Harker and his fiancée Mina. Only one more fictional character has more adaptions than Dracula; and not surprisingly, it is Conan Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes (237 appearances on screen). The actor who played the role of Count, invariable became linked with it for rest of their career. Bela Lugosi, Christopher lee, Leslie Nielson - great actors in their own right, are only known today for their respective appearances as Count Dracula. However, there are three adaptations which are as close to Stoker’s original story as it can possibly get. The 1922 silent film titled “Nosferatu”, "Dracula - The horror", 1958 adaption played by Christopher lee and then the 1992 extravaganza by Francis ford Copolla by the same name featuring Gary Old man as a slightly comical version of the Count. Each one brilliantly told in its own way. Among the three, I personally rate “Nosferatu” as perhaps the finest, scariest and true to Stoker’s grim story. Klaus Kinski, who played Dracula, captured the pure evil essence to perfection. His nauseating ugliness on screen was enough to evoke fear in audience. Though, the movie was made in the Silent era, the sheer pace of its narration on screen was more intense than any words could have possibly conveyed. Directed by FW Murnau, the famed German director, philosopher, Nosferatu got into trouble with the stoker family after its release. The reason being that Murnau did not acknowledge Stoker’s story, and it was considered an unauthorized adaptation of the book. Stoker’s won the case, and all prints of the movie was ordered to be destroyed. But, by a strange act of fate, a few copies were smuggled into England and USA, and decades later they found their way into the public domain. It seems as though destiny wouldn’t want such a great effort go wasted; and rightly so, in my opinion.

Christopher lee, on the other hand consummated the charm of Count Dracula in a different way. Six and half feet tall, aquiline face, penetrating eyes, deep sonorous voice that was at once seductive and authoritative – Lee presented the lusty and sophisticated of Stoker’s Dracula. Finally, Copolla’s adaption in 1992 was more visually authentic to that gothic century when the tale is set. It is the least scary of all the three adaptions that I like.

To conclude, Bram stoker never would have realized that the Gothic story that he so innocently wrote for commercial success, would have such a pathological following in years to follow. One can never rationalize the lure of the Blood thirsty count, but none can deny that it satisfies something rather deep within us - a suppressed desire to be possess eternal life and love. Stoker was never a student of Psychology, but even if he was; little would he have known that the raw nerve he touched through Dracula’s character, was indeed the basis of psychoanalysis that Sigmund Freud later developed as “libido” - the strange coiled relentless desire of man to achieve physical consummation with the other half.

Read the book, if you have not already done so. And when you read it, make sure you are alone with just a mellow reading lamp to illuminate the book. And preferably, read it during the nocturnal hour. Once you have done reading the book, watch “Nosferatu” on Netflix. With that one’s education on Count Dracula’s strange story is complete.

God bless…